Page 103 of Queen of the Crimson Throne

And with that he left, leaving me in the alcove alone.

We all gathered in my room a while later, my mind still reeling over what had transpired between Luka and me in the alcove.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the feeling of his hands on my body. The trail of heat they left. It left the pulsing need at my center unfulfilled.

Luka was the last to arrive despite being the one going out and finding everyone. He didn’t even look in my direction before sitting on the couch opposite me.

Everyone looked between me and Luka. I ignored them as they shared looks I didn’t care to dissect.

It was Declan who finally broke the silence. “What did you find?”

I tore my gaze from Luka, who was looking out the window instead.

“I guess I’ll be the one speaking.” I let my irritation leak into my voice. Was he going to make a habit of this? Ignoring me every time I let him touch me?

Luka continued to look out the window as I revealed to everyone what we found in the office. Including my theory about Arlo being involved with the Vanir, before placing the duplicated documents on the table.

“You really think Arlo is behind all this?” Nico asked.

“I don’t know him well enough, but why else would he have these documents? They’re from my father’s study.”

“What if Braham sent Arlo the documents? Before he died? They were in communication.” Luce drummed her nails on the table. “I will ask my mother if she knows anything about it,” Luce added, glancing at Luka out of the corner of her eye.

“Thank you.”

“Did you two read through all of the documents?” Declan looked up from the papers in front of him, a piece of dark hair falling across his face.

“We didn’t exactly have time to examine them closely.” I made my way over to the harpy. “Why did you find something else?”

“Is there a reason why your grandfather would be keeping documents detailing missing vampires?”

“Missing vampires?” Luka’s brow furrowed. “When?”

Declan continued to shuffle through the papers as we gathered around him. “There’s hundreds of them.”

“Hundreds? I feel like if there were hundreds of vampires going missing I would know about it.” Luka grabbed the papers from Declans hands. “This can’t be right.”

“I would have thought I would have been privy to the information too, but clearly I’m not,” Declan added.

“So Arlo is hiding these disappearances?” I mussed. “But why?”

“These go back years,” Luka muttered. “Starting with the disappearance of my cousin.”

I whipped my head toward Luka. “Your cousin?”

He nodded solemnly. “My cousin Este and her friend disappeared out of the blue one afternoon. They wandered into the forest and never returned. They were never found.” Luka swallowed, his eyes fixed on the document in his hand. I remembered him telling me about her, the evening we spent under the stars during the ball last spring. “The date on the oldest report is from the day she disappeared, seventeen years ago.”

“There are no reports documenting disappearance before that one?” Luce asked.

Declan shuffled through the papers again before finally shaking his head.

“Clearly, your grandfather must believe the disappearances are related, but that doesn’t explain why he’s kept them hidden,” Kara wondered out loud.

“Wait.” I sat up in my chair. “When I first met with Arlo when I arrived he alluded to dark things happening in the Blood Court, do we think he meant these disappearances?”

Declan shrugged. “Maybe, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

I hadn’t thought too much about our conversation, especially considering Arlo had denied every meeting I requestedsince to follow up on our conversation. I hadn’t thought about it before, since Arlo had been traveling frequently, but maybe he was avoiding me. Avoiding telling me whatever thesedark thingswere.

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